I have to apologize........

......to our faithful supporters. I didn't realize that it was more than a month since we updated this spot. SORRY!!!! As you can tell we have been very busy!

Well, I've tried two times to put some photos on here but for some reason it's not working today. So another apology.......... I wanted to show you what we have been busy with but now will just have to tell you.

We put a deck on the back side of our trailer. There are sliding glass doors in the dining room -- but they were not used because it was a 5 foot drop out the doors. There was a deck slab laying out in the trees -- in good shape --- so we started with that and then enlarged on it. We now have the deck going from the back door (out of the laundry room) and the sliding glass doors so that makes it 15 1/2 feet long by 8 feet wide. We are really enjoying it!!!! Well actually for the past several days we haven't ----- had 4 1/2 inches of rain since this past Wednesday and this is Monday. Today is still cloudy but no rain so far. Of course, that means our roads are horrendous!

Our other project has been our garden. We have been eating radishes, spinach and lettuce already. We have: corn, beans, peppers, zucchini, butternut, tomatoes, carrots, onions, watermelon, muskmelon and potatoes. Sounds pretty impressive doesn't it. Everything is up and doing good except for the potatoes - we got them in the ground late....but we think they are coming - saw the ground cracking around them before all the rain came. We have an electric fence around the bottom - 6 inches up and then at about 5 feet. So far we have kept the rabbits and deer out. And there are plenty of both around.

Gary and my cousins husband, Jerry, have been trying to get going on a garage. This will be next to my Grandparents house --- just to the east of our trailer. The rain has really put a stop to their work. So far, they have the holes dug for the posts (it will be a pole barn type)and the cement pads in the bottom of the holes. They are now just doing odd jobs around the place --- waiting for the ground to dry.

Our puppy - Toby - is doing great. He did get under the front deck and got tangled up in the Dish cable for the TV and did some chewing......but that's been his worst trick --- so we are very pleased with him. He found a mud puddle the other day and boy did he have fun. We will have to take him to White Lake and let him really play in the water!!

Our plan is to come back to Michigan in about 7 days.....we will stay for about a week. Then we hope to be back in time for a "Box Social" for a neighboring couple. Barb has cancer and they make trips to Rapid City every week for treatment. So this is a fundraiser to help them pay for gas and etc. I remember "box socials" from my very young days. If you never made up a box and hoped for that special boy to bid on it --- then you haven't lived long enough :-)

We are still thoroughly enjoying JDC. When a young man asked for a Bible the other night....our hearts just soared. He has been in JDC before and just a quiet young man. But we know that his home life is really bad. Last night Gary gave the group a "history lesson" - kind of a REAL short version from Abraham to Moses. You can imagine the shortness of it -- we were only with the kids for less than an hour and part of that was singing and visiting. Anyway....they were told that this was in preparation for Thursday night. Gary will be telling them the story of the Red Sea crossing....and then we will share some photos of the chariot wheels they have found in the Red Sea....proving that this is NOT just a story....but true Biblical facts. We told them they should read ahead and know the story when we come back Thursday. Many of them have a Bible in their room. So when the young man asked for a Bible after that --- we are hoping he is just reading away!!! :-)

Other lessons have been in answer to some questions that the girls gave us. "Where did the Bible Come from"....."How can I know God is real"....How old is the Bible". Thankfully the girls who asked the questions were there to hear our thoughts. The boys and the girls have gardens at JDC. We are skeptical on how they will fair.....will they be overcome with weeds or will someone be there all summer to take care of it.?? But we were glad to see about 5 boys out in their garden spot with hoes the other night.

Well, perhaps we will see some of you during our return to Michigan. We are going to be helping our daughter Marti and husband Tim move to a new home. But will also be in the Overisel area.

Love to one and all.
Gary and Barb

Release Time coming to a close and MORE!!

We have two more Release Time days...... today with the K-2 and then next week with the two older groups. Below you see the 7th and 8th graders with their "Mothers Day" craft. At first my idea was just a fun "spring time project"-----flowers. However, we finished them just before Mothers Day --- so we all thought they would make a nice gift for mom or gramma. The kids really made some nice "bouquets" ! Today we will be telling the story of Zacchaeus and I will attempt to teach them our old Sunday School song too. Then we will watch a Veggie Tales movie on "Telling the Truth"

JDC has been good. We have a young man there now who signs his prayer request card with his nickname...."Lunch Boxx".....and his prayer request is this: DON'T PRAY FOR ME! Two weeks we got that.....then on the third week --- he read a passage out of the Bible for us.....he asked questions and participated nicely. He doesn't sing - but that's OK - a lot of them don't. The third week -- he sat in the front row......his eyes are always on the speaker!!!......and this was his prayer request: DON'T PRAY FOR ME.....(and then on the very bottom) ....unless you want to. :-) :-) :-) We got such a laugh over that.....how God is so at work and we don't even know it.

And below is our newest addition to the Peters household....a little Yellow Lab. The poor little guy needs (NEEDS!!!) a name yet. I could come up with all kinds of names but he's Gary's dog so I feel he should name him. He arrived a little ahead of schedule so he is without a permanent place to call "mine". We didn't expect him until May 26 .......so we are scrambling to get his kennel done. And when it rains every day ...... it's not easy. We even have snow in the forecast for this week. Man do I hope they are wrong!!

We have also been very busy helping the ranchers with cattle. We moved one herd (maybe about 200 pairs) about 13-15 miles on Saturday. It went really good....considering it was cow/calf pairs. I have learned a few new "arts" in the process. It's always fun to be asked to do something new.....bobbing tails or giving shots or whatever. You can't imagine all that goes on with raising beef cattle. It's fun to learn!!! We also got in on an old fashioned branding a couple of Saturdays ago. Gary vaccinated them and I gave them the "squirt" up their noses.....all 350 of them. I should have put a photo of that on here.....but it's too late now. ( I have more troubles when I upload pictures......they're either in the wrong place or somehow I delete and have to start over......have done that once already on this update......so.....sorry.) There were a lot of young boys who went home tired that night. Some of those calves are pretty big and don't like the idea of being man handled. One boy just about lost his grip on the calf and went for a short ride ---- :-) arms around it's neck and leg over it's back..... he didn't let go!!!! The young man won the battle (with a little help) :-) It can get pretty intense when you have 4 cowboys roping and dragging the calves into the branding area.....luckily every body stayed out of harms way.

We are looking for people to pray specifically for a young person in the JDC.....if you are willing -- please let us know. You can contact us at petersgb@juno.com We know that this is the best thing that we (and you) can do. There will not be a picture for you as we are not allowed to take any photos......we have signed confidentiality papers and so we might not even give you the last name. However, God will know who you are praying for....... The needs are so great!!

Thank you for your continued support and prayers.
Gary and Barb
p.s. The little guys name is Toby --- came like a flash!

A picture is worth a thousand words!!!!!

Hope you enjoy these photos. I have (not this time)...had it that I lose pictures if I mess around too much ...so I am just going to let you enjoy them. These are sweet kids!! Keep them in your prayers....I think the pictures speak for themselves. The photo of the things on the wall are our Bible Verses ....we cover our walls with them :-)
Love to all!!!! Gary and Barb

Our "Herd"

We wanted to share our "herd" with you.
Gary was given a cow (actually a heifer
ready to calf) for a Christmas gift -- in
thanks for the work he does on the
ranch. Gary picked a nice looking heifer
---- good and fat so that he knew she
would have a calf soon :) . Well shortly
after telling Dwight which heifer he had
picked -- Dwight told him our herd had
doubled....we had a nice little heifer calf.
WOW---- COOL!! So the picture on the
right is our little #015. She has a nice
telling mark on the right side of her face
...that brown spot that you can see. She's a
real perky little thing -- head up, checking
things out---running all over the place.

The other day Hazel and I --- Gary's sister Hazel
and her husband Paul were out for a weekend
visit as they headed home to Michigan after wintering in Arizona ----- Anyway, Hazel and I went to the pasture to find and photo #015 and her Mama. Well, we found the calf --- now where is the mother. Just like that a cow mooed and off ran #015 (no we won't be naming them) to get a milk shake. So we drove over to the pair. Something was wrong!!!! That cow had the wrong number ----this cow was 8104 ---- mama should have been 8208. What's up?!?!?! So we went off to find the real mama. Where in the world could she be?? We finally found her way across the pasture laying down in the shade.

We are still wondering about the whole thing
--- but meanwhile we have decided that we
have a smart little thing. Not only is she getting
plenty of milk --- if she's fudging off another cow
---- but she's keeping the numbers good -- you
know 8104 - 8208. We are wondering though
if a couple of little ones have gotten their mothers mixed up.

This last photo is of the real mother coming out of the building where she had found some shade.

So there you have it --- we are proud owners of TWO. Good looking stock wouldn't you say?!?!

And now on to the more important things!!!!

Release Time continues to go good. We have to finish telling the Easter Story now - after Easter is over. But it doesn't seem to bother the kids. We can tell that they are retaining the lessons and that is great --- exactly what we are hoping for. We have been doing some spring - "God makes all things new" type of crafts. One of these days I will remember our camera and get a shot of what we did with the kids. Tomorrow we will have the K-2 group and the lesson will be on Jesus' Resurrection. The last time we had this group there were a lot of groans when we had to leave Jesus in the grave. So I think they will enjoy this lesson - - finding out how happy Mary Magdalene was when Jesus said "Mary".

JDC also continues on positive notes. The group has gotten very large --- 36 kids total in the building but 31 that came to the Bible Study time. There are 3 in "max" and 2 in "booking". When a young person is in "max" they are not allowed to come.....they can have visitors (parents) on Sunday but that's all. We visited with 10 young people - one on one - Sunday. It hurts when a sweet young man tells you "I feel ugly inside".....because no family member has visited him for 5 weeks now. These kids are hurting and we feel honored that they have come to trust us enough to share their inner feelings like that. We really can't do anything more than give them our love and time and prayers. We also had the honor and privilege to pray the sinners prayer with a young man Sunday afternoon.

The Lakeview Church met there this past Sunday evening also. When numbers are this large we do lessons twice. The kids were very attentive for Pastor Tom and we had 9 in our group from Lakeview - including Hazel and Paul. Pastor Tom usually relates his messages to the Lakota people and he really does a good job. We had a good time visiting with the kids afterwords too.

Gary and Barb

Boston and a PhD

We are back from a trip to Boston. We had a fun time....Boston (Bahstan) is a nice place to visit...lots of history. It is also quite easy to get around in --- if you can figure out the trains. We had our "kids" along so we let them lead us around.

We were there for our son Ricks' PhD dissertation defense....(I think that's how you state it.) Any way you see the first photo of Rick. :-) Oh! he says suspenders are the "in" thing..... Well he also got to shed his jacket - thanks to Dr. Neville. It was a very warm day and Rick was nervous and the sweat was pouring off him like rain! The Religion building is a beautiful but old building. We
had the windows open (I repeat - it was a lovely
warm day) but the noise from the traffic made it
necessary to close the windows.......and so Dr.
Neville (he's the one with the long beard) said
"I think we can all remove our jackets". I'm sure
he was sympathetic to Ricks situation. The 2nd
picture is the reason for Ricks' nervousness. The
three on the right were the ones who would determine if he "passed" or not.

The whole two hours went way over our heads but we could tell by the smiles and heads nodding
that all was going well. At the close of the meeting we were all asked to leave the room....
including Rick. It really didn't take long and we
were invited back in.....and Dr. Neville greeted
Rick with "Congratulations Dr. Peters".....

And so ole' Mom and Dad Peters now have two Doctors in the family....Marti Peters-Sparling, MD and Richard Peters, PhD. And we also have a
farmer Michael Peters and a stay at home mama Holly Kroeze. We are proud of them ALL!!!

And we are now back in the prairies doing our thing. We had Release Time yesterday and it went great again. The older groups are SO attentive to our lessons. They are really a blessing! Our lessons have been on the Easter Story. We totally missed Easter (we were in the air all day)....and Easter is technically over. But that's what it is all about ----Jesus' willingness to suffer the rejection of His Father for us. We will finish the resurrection story in a couple of weeks but that's OK (the kids groaned when we didn't finish the story ----leaving Jesus in the grave).

I think we have some cattle work tomorrow......moving some cows to a corn circle. The corn was just picked this past week and so there is a lot of downed corn for the cows to clean up on.

I started more garden seeds today in little starter pots. Our tomato seeds have already sprouted (we started them before leaving for Boston). We are getting excited to plant our garden here. We tilled the ground last week. It was an area of sod and weeds so we know that we will need to work it a while before we plant it.

May God bless you in this springtime of the year...... God makes all things new.

Love, Gary and Barb

What a gorgeous end of the day.....

I had to hurry to get this sunset -- but it was worth it!! Our trailer is on "low ground"...... so in order to get this picture I had to hoof it to the top of the hill in the pasture to our west. I really thought I had plenty of time....but I'm glad I hurried.

Fridays are a day that we really don't have anything we HAVE to do. But I accomplished a lot today. I'm working on a quilt for a graduate and it's coming together VERY nicely. Gary is also working on a secret project and that too is looking good. It will be a while before we can share these projects with you ........ SORRY!
:) Gotta love a good secret.

Now this next picture is NOT a scene from the moon......it's our driveway out to the workshop. As you can tell we don't go that route now and probably won't be for a while yet. The steers are gone and the corrals are pretty dry so if we want to drive down to the workshop we go by way of the corrals. No way would you have done that a couple of weeks ago......the mud and steer "poo" was WAY deep.
We had Bible Study at the JDC last night. We had 20 kids and so we tried it with all the kids together once again. It's nice not to have to do the lesson twice but a smaller group is really nicer. They sing better and there isn't as much goofing around. I honestly think the kids like it better in a small group too. They always listen to the lesson good......singing is best in the small group. Next week we are going to show a video of a choir singing "He Could Have Called Ten Thousand Angels". The director watched it (for approval) and thought it was "awesome". So he is willing to set up all the equipment for us to let the kids enjoy it too. It's one I found on YouTube.

Hope you are enjoying spring as much as we are!!!! It's GRAND!!!

Gary and Barb

We had a fun time with our Release Time groups on Tuesday. They are a blessing to us! The above photo is the 2nd Grade class.(Sy, Wahpe, Baptiste, Kaylee, Faith and Shallon, ) Our lesson yesterday was on Jesus' crucifixion. However, this lesson ended with Jesus still in the grave. The kids were really upset that the story "is to be continued". They wanted to hear ALL of it. The photo below is of the Kindergarten and 1st graders.(Michaela, Gayle, Paul, Jowuan, Michael, and Kendall) We had a hard time getting a picture of little "Sonny" Michael (in the front) he just couldn't stand still. We had fun making the pop up card. The idea was "God gives us things to enjoy"....we put a snowman and a "flower garden" on the card. The kids really did a good job and loved the card. Some were going to give it to their mom and dad.

We just returned from a trip "home" (where is home??? - we still aren't sure) to Michigan. Our daughter-in-laws mother (Sharon Rigterink) has gone home to her heavenly father. We arrived in time to help Mike and Julie with "babysitting". We spent as much time as we could staying with the kids so Julie and Mike could be with Sharon and Loren through this very difficult time of saying good-bye. Sharon was one of the strongest person's we had the honor of knowing. She was a GRAND gramma to her 14 grandchildren and a loving mother-in-law to our son Mike. She will be missed!!! Sharon's battle with cancer started ?? 20 years ago. As I understand it she was given 6 months to live at that time. WOW -- the Lord had other ideas :) Sharon will be remembered as a person of great faith.

We came back "home" to South Dakota and found much drier roads. We could get right in to our yard with the car and the snow is departing. The sounds of spring are everywhere. Today we will help Dwight move the cows to the home place. Our "fence jumping" steers are gone - left the day we returned. We will miss looking after them......but hope they get their noses burned a little on the electric fence....teach them a much needed lesson!!!!!

Next week we will be flying out to Boston. Our son Rick will be defending his PhD dissertation on April 2. Rick says this has been a "long and sometimes lonely process". However, his "readers" (those who read his book to see what changes needed to be done before the defense) were thrilled with his work....... We will be gone from April 1 until April 4.

We praise God for his faithfulness ---- for a loving family and good friends --- for safety in travel ---- for good health and strength.

Gary and Barb